There are only two brick and mortar locksmiths near me. They are old and well-established with lucrative contracts to everyone in the county. They are highly suspicious of anyone that has an interest in locksmithing. The automatic assumption is that you are trying to cut into their duopoly.

Unfortunately, even knowing the brother of one of the owners, I have to pretend to be ignorant or they wont do business. Sometimes you have to lie to be trusted.

Hope the review on yelp wasnt anything too bad because many locksmiths relay on yelp and other rating systems to get business. Think about it, they have to be suspicious of weird requests otherwise they can get into some real trouble. Officially in NY, a locksmith must have a customer sign a form with proof of ID before he can work on a lock out and should that person have the ID behind that door, he has to take his own judgement. If he decided to continue to the job, the customer, after the door is open, must present the locksmith with the ID or the smith has obligation to call the cops. There are many more procedures that have to be taken when dealing with customers. Not sure how many actually follow these procedures especially after 10-15 years in the business but they do exist.

Imagine a customer comes and you agree to give him a blank or make a key or whatever and a few days pass like nothing until the Feds or Detectives come to your shop. Apparently that customer used that key to __________(murder, steal etc) and when he got busted he rolled on you. So now what?

I live in a town with one locksmith that i have gone too for 25 years to get keys cut and locks rekeyed and he has always treated me right. It was $15 to copy a key but i didnt mind, i know that he has to pay the bills and put food on the table too. When i started picking and collecting locks about a year or so ago, I went in to his store this time looking for blanks and parts and he treated me like he always has, expect a majority of my blanks and rekeying that i need done are free. I now pick and impression keys for his antique padlock collection in trade for free parts and service. Even thou we get along well he refuses to cut or supply keys to anything that could void his medeco, sargent or abus contracts period. And im cool with that

So when someone that i have never met calls up and ask's for something that could cause me too loose a contract id say no too! Always go in person shake there hand and introduce yourself.you might get better results.

Ok, I understand that they dont know me from the Night Stalker but when I say that I will bring in the KIK for them to make the key (and its not a restricted keyway because its the 00 keyway where anyone can get keys off the internet) I would at least think that they would say, well why dont you come in and let me take a look at it. I could have explained where I got them and if they would have said "Hey let me re-pin it so I know your not trying to use the key to break in some where" I would have said OK do it..

Like I said, I understand how locksmiths think of Medeco's but common courtesy would have gotten him some money or I just go to another guy.

Locksmiths are the last line when it comes to hardware security. If I had a large contract with my local locksmith, where in they serviced my multi building account strictly medeco (on the recommendation of said locksmith). I would re think that contract if I found out they just go cutting medeco keys for anyone without proof of ownership (card). Regardless of the keyway. I would be paying for security and confidence. Something like that is bad practice, and a sign of a locksmith that won't take your security and confidence in consideration when making a few dollars cutting keys.

They didn't have to be rude, but anyone should be able to understand why the answer was No.

I had much the same attitude from my local locksmiths. But now so much time has passed, I spend hundreds of dollars a month in their shop, I've picked locks for them, I've been given so many free things it's not even funny. At a bare minimum I get the employee discount. I also Often I get stuff at cost. As for restricted stuff, they probably still wouldn't let me do anything without proof of ownership. Even though they know me extremely well, by my uniform, and by the amount of security clearance I need for my job.

Guess what I'm saying is, hang in there time will ease their minds!And if a locksmith has no problems handing you restricted stuff, or without proof of ownership, he's not a locksmith you should trust.